The Studio Theatre's production of Caroline, or
Change lives up to all expectations for this complex
musical play. Playwright Tony Kushner (book and lyrics) and
composer Jeanine Tesori have crowded a lot of issues into
the drama, centering on change at individual, family, and
societal levels, and director Greg Ganakas has worked hard
to bring them all out.

If this show is going to work, it needs towering central
performances, and Studio's production has them: Julia Nixon
as Caroline, the "implacable, indestructible" maid to a
Jewish family in 1963 Lake Charles, La., and Max Talisman as
Noah Gellman, the 8-year-old son of her employer. Nixon
makes the character's frustrations and conflicts vividly
real and wrenching, and Talisman gives an amazingly assured
performance in his professional debut, never settling for
the cheap laugh and unafraid to show the character's genuine
pain.

Kushner has incorporated some pieces of his own childhood
in Lake Charles in the framework for Caroline, but he
uses the Gellman family and Caroline as a microcosm for the
larger society. Change is everywhere in 1963: the year of
the March on Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.;
the church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., that killed four
African-American girls; and the assassination of President
Kennedy.

Noah's family is facing upheaval of its own, beginning
with the death of Noah's mother from cancer. Noah's father
Stuart (Bobby Smith), a clarinetist, can't deal with his
grief and withdraws from other people. In an attempt to
restore normalcy to the household, Stuart has married his
late wife's friend Rose (Tia Speros), a New York Jew
learning to cope in an unfamiliar culture. (She tries to be
kind to Caroline, but her efforts - and the fact that she
mispronounces the name as "Carolyn" - come across as
patronizing.)

Amid all this stress, Noah considers Caroline the only
person he can rely on. He sees her strength, but not her own
sorrows: a broken marriage, an oldest son in Vietnam, three
younger children at home, and hardly enough money to support
them all. The relationship between Noah and Caroline reaches
the crisis point after Rose tells Caroline she can keep any
loose change Noah leaves in his pockets, and Noah tries to
reach out to Caroline and her family by intentionally
leaving coins in the pockets.

Amid all this seriousness, Kushner adds a whimsical third
level of reality: Caroline's imagination. As she works in
isolation in the swampy basement of the Gellman home,
Caroline listens to the radio (a Motown trio played by
Monique Paulwell, Omoro Omoighe, and Kearstin Piper Brown in
glittering fringed dresses); the gentle voice of the washing
machine (earth mother Allison Blackwell); and the deep,
sensual sound of the dryer (Elmore James). Blackwell and
James also appear as the all-seeing moon and a bus grieving
for President Kennedy.

The entire cast is strong and works as an ensemble, but
special mention should go to Otts Laupus as Rose's father,
an unrepentant socialist, and Trisha Jeffrey as Caroline's
outspoken daughter. Their scene together strikes sparks.

The fine six-piece orchestra conducted by Howard
Breitbart works constantly from just offstage. Debra Booth's
minimalist set, which consists primarily of a metal
staircase, a second-floor catwalk, and a red door, allows
the action to flow unobtrusively.